Nude model 'was not illegally naked'

A lawyer has claimed that public nudity is permitted in New York after his client was cleared of charges stemming from a naked photoshoot in public.

Kathleen Neill, 26, had been charged with exposure, public lewdness and endangering the welfare of children after she stripped off for a shoot with photographer Zach Hyman at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Post reports.

Tom Hillgardner said: "My argument is, you can go stark, raving, completely nude in Times Square, or Rockefeller Center or the Metropolitan Museum of Art."

He added that the children who witnessed the shoot had already been exposed to nude statues at the museum and exclaimed: "Perchance they looked at a boob!"

Hillgardner suggested that case law from 1992 and a 1995 legislative amendment have combined to outlaw only topless sunbathing and topless waitresses handing out promotional material.